Rush Holt in the 12th

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

STAFF WRITER

Rep. Rush Holt, Democrat, is running for a seventh term as
New Jersey's representative from the 12th Congressional
District. His principal challenger is Princeton Republican
Scott Sipprelle, a millionaire venture capitalist.

Holt contends that government should create a climate for
entrepreneurship by providing infrastructure, education and
tax incentives for small businesses to hire and bigger
businesses to invest in research and development, with a
safety net for the innocent victims of recession and
outsourcing. Sipprelle calls for government to get out of
the way and let capitalism function with a minimum of
regulation. We believe Holt's response to the lessons
of recent history is the more realistic one.

Holt has supported the best of President Barack Obama's
domestic policies. He voted for the economic stimulus bill,
which Republicans deride but which increased the number of
full-time jobs by up to 4.8 million, according to estimates
by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. He voted to
curb the misdeeds of the financial community that led to the
worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. He
backed a health-care overhaul which, though far from ideal,
will increase the number of insured Americans and end some
of the industry's worst abuses. Sipprelle has attacked
Holt's voting record on these issues.

As one of only a handful of scientists in Congress, Holt contributes a valuable technological perspective to policy debates. This background has informed his leadership of the effort to reform electronic voting and ensure that Americans aren't robbed of their most fundamental right by malfunctioning machines or partisan hackers. The mature judgment he brings to his job is epitomized by a vote he cast against the 2002 congressional resolution that authorized President George W. Bush to invade Iraq in pursuit of what proved to be nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. The full cost of that disastrous mistake by Bush and Congress is yet to be calculated....